It is an accountant budget which is short on vision and long on promise, said BJP senior leader Murli Mnaohar Joshi. Framers have been the worst hit as the UPA budget hardly addresses any of their problems, added Joshi.

Sharad Yadav President of JDU also rubbished the budget by calling it ineffective in answering challenges staring in the face of the nation today. This budget would lead to greater problems for the countrymen, he concluded.

Former Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said that the effort of the current Finance Minister had been to befool people as budget leads us nowhere. Referring to defence allocation he said that the so called increase is offset if we factor in the inflation.

Earlier, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lauded the Finance Minister and said that the roadmap given by him would ultimately lead us to the growth rate of 8 per cent by 2016.

Chidamabaram has expressed confidence of containing the fiscal deficit to 4.8 per cent this year and hope to bring the same down to 3 per cent by 2016.

He has envisaged a growth of 6.2 to 6.7 per cent for the current year. Fiscal deficit, inflation and current account revenue deficit are some of the challenges Chidambaram has tried to tackle.